How to Avoid Common Writing Errors in Essays

Next time you go to write an essay, try to put yourself in your professor’s shoes. Don’t be that person who shows laziness through their writing. There are plenty of common mistakes that are easily avoidable, especially if you are aware of them next time you sit down to power out that essay.

Write to impress! Here are some tips for setting yourself apart from the usual common error crowd when writing an essay:

• AVIOD CONTRACTIONS: [Can’t, Won’t, Didn’t, etc.] This is scholarly writing, not conversational dialogue. You are not writing a blog or a letter to your friend, so peel those words apart and make them two for a more professional tone! Note: sometimes it’s ok to use contractions as long as they don’t overwhelm the reader.
• AVIOD SLANG: [Cool story bro..] This mistake hurts your voice as a writer. If you are trying to convince your professor that you don’t care about the essay or your grade, this is the best way to do it! Words and phrases of this nature should be 100% avoided in essay writing. Instead look up scholarly words that give the same meaning in a more academic and professional manner.
• AVIOD USING “I”: [I agree with the author that…] If your professor wants your opinion in an essay, they will ask for it in the prompt. Otherwise, the general rule here is to avoid using “I” statements because it affects the overall appearance and stance of your essay.
• STAY ON TOPIC: [This reminds me of how one time my friend Susie had a similar experience to this…] We have all been guilty of going off on a tangent before, but keep your prompt and task in mind until the essay is finished. Save your ramble or vent session for your journal.
• STICK TO THE FACTS: [ Virginia Woolf was the greatest English writer of all time..] Sometimes, it can be easy to start being overdramatic in your writing to make it sound better or sound the way you want it to. The best tip to remember is don’t dramatize and don’t make assumptions. Your audience may not feel the same way that you do.

Commonly Overused Words in Writing

When editing, challenge yourself to eliminate words that are used too often.

Words matter in writing. They can make your writing strong or make it weak. Many times, it can be easy to fall on to crutch words [very, really, went, just, seem, there, etc.] instead of taking the time to be more descriptive and creative to make your writing more captivating. Focus on wanting to intrigue readers. Here are some commonly overused words by writers and how to fix them:

• “stuff” 

Use this word sparingly. Hands-down, it’s a lazy word. Try a more descriptive noun depending on the context it is being used in. Ex: Her suitcase was packed with stuff that she could not bare to leave behind. -> Her suitcase was packed with memories and books that she could not bare to leave behind. 

• “things” 

This is a non-desciptive word that can easily be replaced. Ex: After taking one last look around, she grabbed her things and left. -> After taking one last look around, she grabbed her last usable suitcase and left. 

• “got”

This word has ‘got’ to stop being used so often! Especially because there are so many other ways to use it. Ex: She got up the next morning, got her coffee ready, and got her mind in the right place to tackle the day.-> She woke up the next morning, sipped on her coffee, and gathered her thoughts in order to tackle the day ahead. 

• “went”

Try to exchange it for another word more often than not. Ex: She went to the train station and bought the first ticket out of the town she had called home for so long.-> She hurried to the train station…

• “was”, “were”, “is”, “are”, “am”

These words have easy fixes. It can be helpful to look up synonyms in place of these especially because they can go unnoticed in writing. A strongly written story will give words like these much more meaning. Ex: We were at the scene when we heard her say why she was there in the first place. -> We had just arrived at the scene when we heard her say why she had been lurking there in the first place. 

Avoid Very

Very:

Adverb- used for emphasis

Adjective- actual; precise

It was a very peaceful day at the lake when we saw a very large monster creeping through the water. We could see its very shiny and very sharp teeth ready to chomp through our very soft skin. We couldn’t believe it; it was very unexpected. We tried to run off the dock but the monster was very fast and wiggled its way up the very thin dock. We turned around very quickly and found ourselves very scared and very upset. Here it came, the very judgmental and very harsh grammar monster.

Sounds lazy, huh? Pick up a thesaurus, you dumby! Here’s how it sounds with a little more effort.

It was a peaceful day at the lake when we saw a gigantic monster creeping through the water. We could see its gleaming and razor-sharp teeth ready to chomp through our delicate skin. We couldn’t believe it; it was surprising. We tried to run off the dock, but the monster was swift and wiggled its way up the narrow dock. We turned around hastily and found ourselves shivering in our own skin. Here it came, the judgmental and rigid grammar monster.

Editing: the Annoying but Essential Friend

Editing is the most frustrating and annoying part of any paper. You think that it is good enough because you took the time to plan  and it has all the ideas you wanted. But does it really? Do the sentences flow? Are your ideas being portrayed the way you want them to? Does the writing have a purpose and the desired effect on the reader? All these questions need to be answered after your first draft and most of the answers are based on the organization and content of the paper instead of the typical editing of punctuation and capitalization. You can find the answers to all the questions of writing a perfect paper through the magical process of editing. Sometimes we get caught up in the proper location for a comma or a period in particular and we don’t realize that the sentence itself is in a completely wrong place. If your first draft doesn’t have arrows pointing to new locations for a sentence or completely different sentences written in the margins to be added to your paper then you must be the world’s first perfect writer (you aren’t and nobody is). If it isn’t ugly then you are doing something terribly wrong, my friend.

Though it may be the worst part of writing a paper, editing is the most beneficial process for the end result. Editing allows you to identify and correct the flaws of a paper. It also allows you to get the most out of your paper; it gives you the opportunity to arrange your paper so that you spark something in the reader. The process of editing assists in making your purpose clear and understandable for the reader. Reading a paper that has been edited should be easy and fluid for any audience member including yourself. Editing is your friend, your annoying but necessary friend.

Much Ado About Editing

Share your work.

Nothing is more advantageous to the writer than having a fresh set of eyes review their work. Even if your reader is not as informed on the topic, or in no way understands how you wield such nice sounding words, a fresh perspective and interpretation can assist in editing.

Not only is your work being reviewed for simple mechanical errors like typos or an extra word or two, but sometimes a second reader will notice errors you have overlooked even after self-editing. As the writer, you spend so much time and energy attempting to fit a world of information into 4-15 pages that having someone take a second look can go a long way. Keep in mind that your reader’s feedback is valuable (if they’ve done your work a proper revision) in the sense that they are not as immersed in the topic as you may be and that there interpretation can help point you in the right direction for editing, finishing the paper, or simply working through murky areas of the paper that you no longer wish to spend anymore time one.

As painful as it can be to share pages of what you have been working hard at, nothing could hurt more than submitting a piece that does not flow well, drifts from its intended purposes, and is riddled with various typos and quick fixes.

Share your work.

Much Ado About Editing

Self Editing Strategy #1

Read your writing out loud, slowly.

Often while looking over an essay you might skim through it rather than reading closely because the text is so familiar. Reading out loud and pronouncing every word can help you notice little mistakes and give a sense of how the sentence sounds and what can be done to make it better.

Ex: Shep went to the the store.

Error: Repetition of “the.”

Solution: Read carefully.

I enjoy graphing statistical anomalies in the population of moths in the Eastern seaboard I would do it every day if my parents let me.

Error: Run-on sentence.

Solution: Split with a semicolon or break into two sentences.

whisper, or rustling.